


The Garden of the Beast

by ninamazing



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2007-04-08
Updated: 2007-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 13:16:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninamazing/pseuds/ninamazing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"No, no, not at all –" Rose answered at once – "it's just only a little bit ago we were being chased by a horde of plague victims and my head was getting crushed into a corner. But I'm not tired of this, it's –" she tugged slightly on the Doctor's arm, in hers – "it's beautiful."</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Garden of the Beast

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series I want to do, where I fill in gaps between actual S1/S2 episodes with my own "missing episodes" (ADVENTURES IN TIME AND SPACE with less shoddy science and more snogging! Hurrah!). I wanted to do this as a one-shot, but it was going sloooowly because being an aerospace engineering student kind of sucks, and I didn't want Russell to revisit the idea of New New York before I did. More importantly, posting in chapterized format is ... er ... more fun? Maybe? [IN SHORT: UNFINISHED WIP. SORRY ABOUT THAT.]

"Er, Doctor," said Rose as they stepped back into the TARDIS. "D'you think we can go back? Just for a bit? Only I never really got to see New New York, did I?"

The Doctor gave her a calculating look. "And most of your time was spent being crushed by Cassandra's invading consciousness. Right then," he went on with a grin, "let's go then! New New York, the city itself!"

Rose grabbed hold of the proper levers while the Doctor spun a wheel and pressed buttons. She'd always imagined time and space travel as done by very meticulous men in white lab coats, with huge computer screens and great columns of data. The Doctor's haphazard genius and friendly attitude toward danger was much more to her liking.

Still, this way of life was not without its tolls. Rose found herself flung against the solid wall of the TARDIS as the ship jerked and hooked round.

"What's happening?" she asked when she could speak – the Doctor gripped one of the rails still and was furiously punching controls.

"Temporary spatial displacement," he murmured vaguely, eyes still bonded to his screen. "Not sure what's causing it."

"You're quite a bit bumpier with the TARDIS than your old – self," Rose remarked shakily, steadying herself.

The Doctor shot her a quick, unreadable look. Anger? Insecurity? Irritation? No, irritation was the old Doctor, for sure.

"Bumps usually don't mean anything," he told her at last. " _Well_ – usually."

A minute passed, during which the Doctor's expression of fierce concentration turned to one of triumph, Rose rubbed at the back of her right shoulder where she'd hit the TARDIS wall, and the light in the middle ceased its moving.

"Welcome back to five billion and twenty-three," the Doctor said with a smile, holding out his hand. She grinned and took it.

"By the way," he added, "you all right?" Gentle, long fingers touched the spot on her back where she'd been banged up.

"Yeah, fine," she said quickly, shaking off his hand, but unable to stop staring into his eyes. "Happens all the time."

"Whatever you say, Rose Tyler." This new Doctor smiled at her more, she was almost certain. She was pretty convinced she liked it.

"Come on," she urged him. "New New York's waiting."

They stepped out together, arms still linked — and despite an easy familiarity with surprises, they both very nearly stepped back in again. Rose let out a gasp, and the Doctor frowned.

"Where _are_ we?" she exclaimed.

"It's not that I _mind_ spontaneity," the Doctor remarked to no one in particular. "It's just it always seems so foreboding."

"But what could be wrong with _this_ place?" protested Rose, enthralled. "It's just a – giant – _garden_."

"It is that," the Doctor agreed as he scanned the place with his eyes. Face-of-Boe-sized sunflowers leapt out at them, next to a patch of bursting purple hyacinths. A long trail snaked before them, leading – as far as the two could tell – through huge roses, lilacs, daffodils, and plenty more fragrant beauties Rose didn't recognize (and figured were alien). All was a blissful quiet, except for a variety of bird songs and the soft hush of an Earthlike summery breeze.

"Doctor," Rose almost whispered, her voice reverent, "have you been here before?"

"No," he said. Even he couldn't conceal his surprise. He'd been positive, this time, that he'd entered the timestamp and location correctly – but then again, he usually was.

"Well," replied Rose, holding out her arm, "only one thing to do, really."

He took it, beaming down at her. "Quite right, you are," he agreed, and the two of them began their stroll.

 

Three hours and many hundreds of footsteps later, the time travelers had gotten more than their fill of florid beauty.

"It doesn't ever _stop_ ," Rose remarked. She had been going for wonder, but the Doctor knew her better.

"Tired?" he asked softly.

"No, no, not at all –" Rose answered at once – "it's just only a little bit ago we were being chased by a horde of plague victims and my head was getting crushed into a corner. But I'm not tired of this, it's –" she tugged slightly on the Doctor's arm, in hers – "it's beautiful."

"Yeah, it's a bit –" The new Doctor wrinkled his nose.

"What? A bit what?"

He shook his head. "Nothing – never mind." He blinked and looked around a few more times, and then turned to her with an odd brightness in his eyes. "Listen, I've just remembered –"

"What's this, now?" Rose looked up as the Doctor bent over her head, screwdriver buzzing.

"Never properly looked you over," he admitted.

"Oh, don't make a fuss, I'm sure it's nothing," she said, and then decided she rather liked him ignoring her complaints and carrying on anyway.

"Try to keep your head still," he murmured, holding her cheek as he searched. His eyes never left the blue illumination of the top of her head.

"Good then," he announced when he'd finished, and gave her a quick full-armed squeeze. "A hundred and ten percent. A-OK. Ship-shape. Topsy-turvy. Wait, that's wrong."

Rose laughed, but before she could tell him that he was more mental than ever, a hole opened up in the ground and sucked her in. The Doctor's left hand — the one that moments ago had been holding Rose's arm — smashed into hard, brown, unyielding dirt. He balled it into a fist and hit it against the ground again, even though he knew nothing would happen.

Something, however, actually did happen.

Where his hand had been, the ground was now sucking his face through a root-infested hole. If the flowers above him had eyes (and the Doctor very much suspected that they did), they'd see just his hair, attached to a humanlike body that was frantically grabbing at loose soil in attempt to steady itself. Then, as if it suddenly remembered something, one of the hands reached underneath the pinstripe-suited body and pulled out a sonic screwdriver, aiming it rather awkwardly at the sucking hole in the ground.

The Doctor stopped here, though, and waited. What he was seeing now was more than dirt or the bottoms of weeds. It was more like a dream, induced by strange and dangerous drugs. It was a vision, a trick, a clue.

A beach, on a cloudy day. A man falling off a cliff. Rows and rows of spaceships, blowing up one after the other. A baby dying, and all around the mother, endless screaming, both human and non-human. Rose, faceless, in shiny pink shoes.

The ground hiccuped the Doctor back out, and suddenly he was lying on his back in a garden full of surreal flowers with a sonic screwdriver on his stomach. It was about as disappointing as accepting a drink from a Nine-Horned Bakroonian Poison Fairy.


End file.
